Manchester City's participation in Europe is over for another year, smouldering out on an evening that will be remembered as the nadir of Mario Balotelli's first season in English football.

Roberto Mancini's players put in a valiant effort, winning this second leg via Aleksandar Kolarov's low drive, but Balotelli's red card after 36 minutes left them short in attack and, for all their endeavour, the damage inflicted in the Valeriy Lobanovskiy stadium last week proved to be too great. Balotelli was "stupid", to use Mancini's description, delivering a crude, studs-up kick into the chest of Goran Popov, reminiscent of Nigel de Jong's now-infamous challenge on Xabi Alonso in the World Cup final.

Whether City would have worn down their opponents had Balotelli stayed on the pitch we will never know. But Mancini certainly appeared to think so and the manager was entitled to feel badly let down. "If it was 11 versus 11 we would probably have scored two or three goals," Mancini said after a match that leaves the FA Cup as City's solitary hope of a trophy. "At 2-0 it was a very difficult game but a stupid red card and 2-0, 11 versus 10, it's hard ... there is a big difference."

Mancini had initially been reluctant to criticise a player he has tried to coddle at times since signing him from Internazionale last summer but, asked whether he was angry, his response was clear. "What do you think?" he replied. "If Mario thinks, he could be a fantastic player. But this is his problem. When he does stupid things like tonight it's difficult for him, for me and for the team."

In the circumstances the 10 men acquitted themselves well. Kolarov's goal came three minutes after the red card, arrowing his shot through a congested penalty area after David Silva had touched a free-kick into his path, and what followed was a courageous and spirited attempt to break through the Ukrainian team's defence again. Dynamo, despite the extra man, seldom played with any ambition. They had also resorted to diving, time-wasting and just about every other trick in the book long before the end. But the extra man told.

City were the superior team for long spells but there were few clearcut chances in the second half and the late onslaught that might have been anticipated never really materialised. By the final whistle they looked a tired side, running out of ideas and, for that, Balotelli will have to accept a significant proportion of the blame. There is nothing new about this 20-year-old blurring the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not but, until now, the good has outweighed the bad, even if there have been moments when it has been a close call.

This, though, was a footballer guilty of reckless naivety and, in doing so, endangering himself to the possibility of losing a certain amount of trust from the supporters.

Balotelli had suffered a couple of heavy tackles himself and the tell-tale signs were there of a player allowing emotion to get the better of him, running towards the Turkish referee, Cuneyt Cakir, at one point and gesturing wildly. His time on the pitch also incorporated missing the kind of chance he would usually convert blindfolded and inadvertently getting in the way of a goal-bound Silva shot and, taking all that into account, he had reason to be frustrated.

Even so, little defence could be applied to the way, jumping for an aerial challenge, he jabbed out his left leg and planted his studs into Popov's chest before dragging them all the way down to his opponent's thigh. It was a night of bizarre refereeing from Cakir, with eight players booked. "Every time, dive; every time, whistle, whistle," Mancini said afterwards. But this was a clear sending-off and the latest demonstration that Balotelli is a player who can veer out of control far too easily. The striker has had two red cards and nine yellows in 20 appearances this season.

He also has 10 goals, which is a measure of why Mancini brought him to the club in the first place, knowing full well that it would be a turbulent ride at times. But Balotelli did not deserve the crowd's applause as the assistant manager, Brian Kidd, chaperoned him to the tunnel and, in keeping with a controversial evening, there were unconfirmed reports after the match of Balotelli stopping his car to remonstrate with a group of Kyiv supporters.